


house warming

by zurau



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Dark Swan Arc, F/F, One-Shot, Swan Queen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-08
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-25 12:09:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4960060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zurau/pseuds/zurau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>after saving robin, regina returns to emma's. they talk. kind of. (set after the events of 5x02)</p>
            </blockquote>





	house warming

**Author's Note:**

> this happened bc i refuse to believe that regina would be so black and white about the good/bad dichotomy with regard to emma as comes across in "i know you, i know the good you is still in there". and ngl because emma's compulsion to jump people now that she's all evil is quite fun. 
> 
> kind of got away from me so incredibly rambling and probably more than a little disjointed. also no capitalisation bc i actually forgot to capitalise as i was writing and was too lazy to go back to change it. whoops.

she’s standing on the doorstep, stomach churning, for a few moments before she can bring herself to knock on the door. it takes a bit of careful shuffling, what with clutching a bottle of 1996 pomerol in each hand but she does it. she’d been saving it for an occasion that merited cracking open not one, but two bottles of wine that she can’t even remember the price of (with 18 years of boredom and an unlimited budget she may have become a little extravagant. disgustingly extravagant in fact). she thinks it wasn’t more than $150 but then again. a lot of free time and an awful lot of money. and if ever there was an occasion for it, this was probably it.

the door swings open under her fist before she can knock twice. for a dark one’s lair, the house seems surprisingly…homely. there's a fire crackling in the grate, the lights are on, a faint scent of cinnamon hangs in the air. she steps cautiously inside, placing the bottles on a side table and shedding her coat, the door swinging shut behind her with a soft thud.

“emma?”

there’s not an answer, so she walks towards the kitchen. it's well-decorated, spacious, decidedly tasteful with more appliances than just a toaster. of course it would take being consumed by the single most evil power in the universe to make this woman grow up. said woman is waiting there, her arms folded and an eyebrow raised. she can’t say she doesn’t recognise some of herself in the posed figure - sharp, dark dress, severe hair, a tightness around the mouth. hostility is rolling off her in waves, and there’s a distinct crackle of magic in the air, a whiff of something vaguely like gasoline mingling with the cinnamon. 

when regina opens her mouth to speak it catches in her throat. she takes a deep breath.

“i’m sorry. i shouldn’t have snapped.”

there’s no discernible change on emma’s face. she swallows, continues.

“i brought a nice bottle of wine. no rage.”

silence again. a hand reaches out and it takes her a second to hand over the bottle. emma stares at the label for a second, spins the bottle, “how much did this cost you?”

she sounds a bit stunned and it eases the tension a little. regina smirks, chuckles, “you don’t even want to know.”

emma rolls her eyes, clicks her fingers. two wineglasses appear on the counter, a corkscrew flying out of the drawer. it opens the bottle with a pop. the wine pours itself, but emma is the one to hand a glass to her - she walks over and gets a little too close. irritatingly, formalwear suits her, and even if her hair does look like it’s been covered in talcum powder, she looks good. irritatingly good. of course emma swan can pull off casual and formalwear with the same ridiculous ease. although, with the way that dress is clinging to her, regina would be willing to argue that formal is a better showcase for the woman’s considerable…assets.

emma sips the wine slowly, her eyes falling shut as she swallows. 

“i take it lover boy's still in the land of the living”

regina practically feels her nostrils flare and she’s getting too incensed to care.

“he’s hospitalised.”

“poor thing”, emma shoots back, "shouldn’t you be at his bedside playing the loving soulmate?”

“he could have died”, she says from between gritted teeth.

“he is still breathing, isn’t he?”

“no thanks to you."

“like i said, regina, i’m done fixing your messes.”

her jaw clenches and she glares at her, “if you would just tell us what happened in camelot then perhaps i wouldn’t have asked you to fix this particular mess.”

emma sets down her wine sharply, “and here i was thinking you didn’t come to fight with me.”

regina grinds her teeth and takes a long sip of wine, “that wasn’t my intention, no.”

emma smirks, steps forwards again.

“then what did you come for?”

“i think you know.”

she takes another long step forwards, directly into regina’s personal space.

“enlighten me."

her voice drops into a register that's more than a little seductive. regina steps back until she feels the counter behind her bump against her back. it takes a second for her to smile, her winning politicians smile, to take back control.

“i came for dinner.”

“oh”

“and i came to apologise. i was wrong, earlier. when i said i could still see the good you.”

she can almost feel emma bristle as she turns on her heel and stalks back to the counter.

“so you felt like having dinner with evil incarnate instead?”

“not exactly”, she bites her lip, takes a sip of wine, before she continues “i talked to your beloved pirate. he didn’t say much but i got the impression that he stalked out of here too.”

“and?”

“and i don’t think you should be left by yourself.”

“worried about the havoc i might wreak?”

she laughs, “emma, as far as I know, the only thing you’ve done so far as the dark one is managing to acquire a house in a town where there’s a 100% occupancy rate and renovate it without a building permit. the legality of it is certainly questionable, but it’s hardly havoc.”

though emma still has her back to her she can practically feel her her eyes roll. she hears something mildly insulting about bureaucracy get muttered but emma's shoulders drop a little. she doesn’t relax entirely. regina puts her wine down and walks up slowly behind her and places a hand on her back. she’s staring fixedly at the cupboard in front of her, eyes not moving.

“but what I do know is that real life isn’t black and white. we can’t pick and chose the pieces of the people we…of family."

she feels emma stiffen under her hand but ploughs on.

"so whilst i will not stop fighting to get the darkness out of you, i recognise that it’s not something that can just be pulled out of you. dark one or not, you’re still emma, and there’s no good version of you whimpering, trapped in a dark corner of your head. this is you, for now. and we’re going to just have to accept it. for now.”

emma turns her head, blinks. regina meets her gaze and smiles softly.

“i know what it feels like to have everyone you love run away from you. i don’t want you to feel that.”

she moves her hand away and takes a step back, smoothing her skirt down despite it lying perfectly, “regardless, i do appreciate how the darkness has matured your taste in wine. and clothes for that matter.”

emma turns, finally. her smile is brittle, but it’s there, “i thought you might appreciate my new wardrobe."

regina finds herself flushing a little and turns her head away, “well…it’s certainly better than some of the garbage you call clothes.”

“funny…so this is a house warming?”

“if you like.” regina says, then smirks, “are you going to provide edible something to go with this wine or do i have to do everything around here?”

“get used to it - you are the new saviour”

before she can snap out a response emma twirls her hand and the table is set with a meal that’s…frankly extravagant, even by her tastes. there’s soft music playing in the background, jazz maybe, and there’s even a table cloth. god help her, as much as she appreciates how remarkably civilised emma’s become in 6 weeks, she almost misses the woman who considered a matching dinner set as fancy.

“that’s not exactly what i meant.”

emma just walks to the end of the table, pulls out the chair and gestures with a smirk, “your majesty?”

she feels fingers brush up her arm as she sits and shivers. emma sits at the opposite end of the table, languid in her chair. the way she moves is different. she always had a smooth strength to her but this is more deliberate. less clumsy. definitely less awkward. and she seems to have developed the ability to walk in heels without looking like a linebacker. it’s mildly impressive.

\--

the meal is quiet, other than emma asking for the full story of the confrontation with the fury (she rolls her eyes so hard at the description of the friendship chain that blasted that regina thinks for a moment that she’s having some kind of seizure) and when regina grudgingly complements the food. it’s definitely cheating, though, by her standards. she makes sure to tell her that. emma smirks in reply and magics up a professional looking bowl of sorbet.

after, their plates disappear with a small spark of magic and they migrate to the living room.

“what did you do to the family who lived here?”

“you knew about them?”

“i made this town, cursed everyone in it and essentially ruled it for 28 years. i knew them. horribly all-american.”

emma snorts, “i had thought i might have had some problems in living up to the most notorious female villain in history, but then i remembered how toothless your curse was.”

“excuse me?”

“you cursed your worst enemies to a world with indoor plumbing, good hygiene and advanced medical care. probably increased their lifespan by thirty years, not counting the thirty they were cursed for. hardly terrible.”

“as the dark one you’ve hardly done anything evil yourself, dear.”

“are you trying to tempt me?"

“what did you do with the andersons?”

“turned them into lawn ornaments.”

“emma.”

“i told them to leave or i’d kill them. they cleared out pretty quickly. pretty sure the rest of the neighbourhood did too. that might be why there’s so many people in the woods.”

“and the you tore down their house?”

“it was an eyesore. this is so much nicer.”

“i didn’t think you had much appreciation of architecture, miss swan.”

“i may have had to google it to find a suitable reference.”

“please tell me there’s not an identical house in some suburb in michigan.”

“connecticut, actually, and not identical. i’m not totally unimaginative. the interior is all mine, at least.”

“i suppose it doesn’t look entirely terrible.”

“at least my house isn’t full of fake antiques.”

regina raised an eyebrow

“i’m point out the fact that you cursed this town straight into the eighties. unless you shipped in a load of colonial pieces when you arrived, everything in your house is basically forged and not more than 30 years old.”

“i suggest you stop right there.”

“just saying.”

it’s quiet for a few moments.

“how’s henry?”, emma asks suddenly, apparently nonchalant though her knuckles are white, wrapped around her glass.

“he’s coping.”

“how does it feel to be the less evil parent, finally?”

“not as good as i had hoped it would feel when i was running that smear campaign against you.”

“hmmm.”

regina traces the pattern on her glass. where emma got fancy crystal tumbler in storybrooke is beyond her. though she’s half certain that she’s seen this set in gold’s shop before. add petty theft to the dark swan’s list of crimes. she thinks for a moment for she speaks again, “i saw him talking to a…girl at granny’s”

“i’ve never heard that word imbued with such disgust before”

“you weren’t there. it was worrying, to say the least”

“he is fourteen.”

“he’s still a child, emma”

“to be honest, regina, with a ex-evil queen and the dark one as his parents i’m surprised he’s even found somebody that will look at him twice.”

regina bristles, growls, “that’s our son you’re talking about”

“he’s smart, and cute, sure. royalty in the town, too. but i seriously doubt there would be many parents in storybook willing to let their daughters or sons date him.”

“sons?”

emma shrugs, “it could happen. didn’t think you’d be one to care.”

“of course i don’t."

\--

they've been sitting in silence for a while. the wine is gone, but wonder of wonders means that emma had some half-decent whiskey in her cupboard, though the bottle was half empty. it’s completely empty shortly after and emma frowns at it before turning to regina.

“i don’t have anymore.”

“that’s alright.”

“i could make some more.”

regina laughs, “even with dark magic i doubt you’d be able to produce anything more drinkable than pure ethanol out of thin air.”

“you want to bet on that?”

“why do you think i have to make my cider by hand? and grain alcohol is particularly difficult, believe me.”

“oh yeah?"

“it takes a lot of power to pull something like that too, i highly doub-“

emma flicks her wrist and the bottle is full. she’s breathing a little heavier and her eyes are flickering across regina’s face, “luckily for me i have a lot of power.”

she stands up, stands over regina where she sits, narrows her eyes, “do you seriously doubt what i’m capable of?”

her reply is haughty, “i’ve hardly seen anything to suggest what you’re capable of now other than turning a dwarf to stone. a petty spell that i reversed easily, for your information. it was impulsive and idiotic, as i'm sure you're aware”

“i thought you were accepting the new me", she sneers down at her, “dwarves or not."

"i hardly think terrorising your mother's friends is something that's generally in the dark one's repertoire. but other than standing idly by while people's lives are at risk, i have yet to see you do anything remotely impressive."

“you have no idea what i am capable of."

without warning everything in the room starts to vibrate, the fire bursting out of the grate for a few moments before receding. the flowers on the mantle wither then burst into bloom again in lurid shades. the floorboards warp out of shape and regina thinks she can see some sinewy and long snaking underneath them, snapping back and forth and causing the floor to roll unpleasantly. the lights are flickering quickly, so quickly that one of the lightbulbs shatters and she flinches as glass rains down and emma’s eyes never leave hers, dark and angry and hungry.

it continues and there’s a dark thrumming coming from the walls. dust falls from the ceiling and she can’t move from her chair, can’t do anything but shout.

it stops. she’s jumps from her chair and strides over to where emma is stood, pushes her back a step, snarls.

“what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

and then she can say anymore emma is kissing her, hard. it takes a few seconds for her to respond and then she’s kissing back, catching her bottom lip and biting. she tastes blood and swallows emma’s hiss before she’s pushed back roughly again the wall and emma’s on her again, her hands twisting in her hair and pulling hard.

she’s lost in it for longer than she’d like, relishing the clash of teeth and the roughness of it, her fingertips digging into emma’s hips and pulling them tighter together. when emma’s lips move across her jaw to her neck she catches herself, pulls her hands away like she’s been scolded and blasts emma across the room into the opposite wall, binding her wrists with all the magic she can muster.

“what the hell was that?”

the magical hold she has on her doesn’t last long and emma is free quickly, stalking back into her personal space. her voice is husky and her lips are swollen and her tight bun has been halfway tugged out and regina thinks that’s she’s never looked more attractive. or dangerous. she licks her lips without thinking about it and feels emma’s eyes dart down to look, hooded, her pupils blown.

“that was 5 years of us dancing around each other, regina. have you honestly never thought about who we’ve ended up with? you with your good, brave, blond thief with a cute kid and me with my reformed, dark, snarky villain. isn’t it about time we cut out those pale imitations and took what we really wanted? what we really deserve?”

she punctuates this with another kiss, her hands sliding down regina’s body in a positively sinful way. regina leans into it, feel heat course through her body, for a long moment before she poofs behind emma and magics a kitchen knife into her hand, presses it tightly against emma’s throat, “i’m warning you, emma, if this is some kind of trick..."

she ignores her, a chuckle bringing emma’s throat bouncing against the edge of the blade. 

“kinky”, she can feel the vibrations in the knife as she speaks, “but ultimately ineffective.”

the knife is gone in a flash and she hears it slide back into it’s place in the kitchen. emma slips from her grasp and turns to face her.

“you don't have to do this, regina. you can leave. i won’t stop you leaving if you want to. i could, but i won’t”

emma’s stepping forwards, stroking the side of her face with the back of one hand. the skin there is cold, but not scaly as she thought it might be. she’s vaguely thankful for the fact.

“this nearly happened in camelot, you know? you don’t remember, but i saved robin for you. you asked me to. it was the first magic i did after the darkness got it’s hands on me.”

regina shakes her head, “no."

"you begged me and i saved him and you kissed him. and i was there with all this power and all this magic and this pull towards you that i couldn’t act on. i think the darkness that still wants you, still remembers how you taste. still likes it"

regina steps forwards this time, sliding a hand around emma’s waist and a hand up to tug emma’s hair the rest of the way out of her bun. she presses her lips to the underside of her jaw and feels emma shiver. she presses chaste kisses up her jaw to her ear to whisper, “so that’s what it is? dark magic makes you want to jump me?”

she nips at her earlobe with her teeth and hears emma’s breathing turn ragged as she talks, "to an extent. i think the darkness has just brought what was already there to light.”

regina tries to speak and emma’s fingers sliding over her lips stop her.

“but killian left earlier too. because he didn’t want me this way - i gave him the choice to leave and he did.”

her fingers slide down to cup her jaw, one thumb reaching to stroke regina’s cheekbone.

she speaks slowly, the edge from her voice falling away. "he didn’t want me. why would i want somebody who won’t take me as i am, who doesn't want me as i am. you want me.”

emma turns her head and catches regina’s lips for a long moment before pulling away. she looks normal for a moment, the warm light adding some colour back to her hair and a softness to her face, “you want me”

it’s a question this time. regina nods slowly. the kiss is a little softer this time, though not by much.


End file.
